Else There Will Be No Birthday Cake
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: Gen and HPDM pre-slash. A terrible, horrible creature that possesses people and tries to keep all the birthday cake for itself has possessed Harry Potter. It's up to Draco, with help from Luna, to keep it from ruining the celebration. COMPLETE.


**Title:** Else There Will Be No Birthday Cake

 **Disclaimer:** J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

 **Pairing:** Gen, Harry/Draco pre-slash

 **Rating:** PG

 **Content Notes:** Silliness, fluff

 **Wordcount:** 3000

 **Summary:** A terrible, horrible creature that possesses people and tries to keep all the birthday cake for itself has possessed Harry Potter. It's up to Draco, with help from Luna, to keep it from ruining the celebration.

 **Author's Notes:** Another of my July Celebration fics, for sandersyager, who requested: _Thank you for doing this! It's a great way to celebrate his birthday. As such, I'd really like a fic with a party for Harry's birthday, gen or H/D, with Draco and Luna having become close friends at some point and possibly getting into some kind of mischief together in the planning of the party or at the party itself. Maybe one of her fanciful creatures turns out to be real (and drawn by birthday cake candles or decorations or something equally silly) and infects Harry. A skeptical and/or deeply amused Draco needs to be convinced to help cure him. If you can also work in Narcissa being present and fond of Harry-possibly even friends post-war-that would be fantastic, but mostly I want Luna and Draco being ridiculous together._

 **Else There Will Be No Birthday Cake**

"…And it's making Harry throw temper tantrums anytime anyone gets near the cake," Lovegood finished, with a nod so deep that it looked like she was bowing. "It can only be driven out of him by someone blond and male. So, you see, you need to be there. Otherwise I would have gone to your mother." She looked at Draco expectantly.

Draco laughed.

He had to, didn't he? Here it was, the birthday of the Savior, a day that Draco spent like any other, in his library looking up rare spells that he then copied out for other people. No, he had no respect for his family's legacy. It was all about who could bid him the most for the spells, or offer him the most in return.

And Lovegood—he couldn't regret enough that he had decided to let her start visiting him—had come to convince him to be a hero, and stood there looking at him so expectantly that Draco knew she had no doubt he would act that way. And there were apparently magical creatures, called Gluttawhoonies, who regularly possessed people about to celebrate their birthdays and then ate the _entire_ cake.

According to Lovegood, they were terrible because they lowered the sum total of joy in the world. Not only did they get people attending the party upset and keep them from eating any cake, the person who had eaten so much sugar would throw up the next day, when the Gluttawhoony left them and moved on to the next birthday.

"They don't exist, Lovegood," Draco said, when he finished laughing. Lovegood was still standing in front of him with her hands folded and a patient expression on her face.

"Good. What time should I tell Ron and Hermione they can expect you at Harry's house?"

"They _don't exist_ ," Draco said forcefully, sitting up and reaching for the next book on the table in front of him. "I'm not going out to battle something that doesn't exist."

"If it doesn't, then it won't take you long. Of course, we want to get there before the cake is all gone."

"Are you _listening_ to me, Lovegood?"

Lovegood widened her eyes. "I don't see the point in listening to something you don't mean anyway."

Draco threw the book across the room and stood up. Lovegood looked at him with still wider eyes, but didn't look away even as Draco strode up to her and poked her in the shoulder with one finger.

Her calm demeanor and how fragile she looked made Draco feel a little bad about it, but he hardened his heart. Laughing at her gossip about creature hunters was one thing. He wasn't about to join in this ridiculous quest of hers.

"Potter is probably playing a joke on people," he said, as calmly as he could. "I don't intend to go over there and get made fun of when Potter reveals it for what it is and laughs it off."

"Your mother is there. She thinks it's real."

Draco shook his head. His mother seemed to have decided that, since she had saved Potter's life during the war, she had to keep taking care of him, instead of seeing it as Potter owing _her_ a debt. It made sense that she would both attend a birthday party of his and believe in the reality of something so stupid.

"Do what you need to, Lovegood," Draco said dismissively, and went to retrieve the book he'd thrown. "But don't come whining to me when it turns out that Potter _was_ playing a joke."

"Say you're right."

"Of course I am." Draco picked up the book and noticed that the back cover was bent a bit. He winced. No matter how angry he got at Lovegood and Potter's antics, he shouldn't damage the books that made up his livelihood.

"Say you're right," Lovegood went on, with that same utterly dazed and patient air. "It would be right for you to point that out to other people and expose the joke, so they don't get made miserable by getting taken advantage of. And I know Harry has a lot of money."

Draco looked up and blinked. "So?" She had never mentioned the money before this, and he hadn't expected to be paid even if she did somehow convince him to come. Lovegood was the one who was an expert in wrangling "creatures" like this, not him.

"I would recommend to Harry that he buy you a new book, to pay you for your time and trouble." Lovegood smiled at him angelically. "Even if it turns out to be real and you don't expose it as some joke Harry's playing."

After that, it wasn't nearly as hard to convince Draco.

* * *

"Get _away_ from there!"

 _When Lovegood said that it was making him throw temper tantrums, she wasn't kidding._ Draco held back his wince with an effort. They were in the back garden of the Burrow, among the cheerful bunting and waving signs with Potter's name on them and small cheerful Snitches. Potter was crouching over the table on which the cake sat, waving his hand back and forth. It would be more threatening if he had anything but fingernails on that hand.

"Gluttawhoonies make people believe they've grown claws," said Lovegood, standing behind him. "But really, they just get their hands covered with icing digging into the cake." She gave him an earnest look.

Draco rolled his eyes, but moved towards the table. Potter immediately swiveled around to focus on him.

Draco studied him carefully, looking for some definite sign that he was either possessed or playing a part. Potter showed him his teeth and gave a single rattling hiss.

Still. Draco had known Gryffindors to go pretty far in pursuit of a joke, those bloody Weasley twins most prominently.

"Why not tell me what's wrong, Potter?" he asked casually, and gestured at the cake. Potter immediately huddled towards it. Draco was prepared to admit it was worth the effort to save, since it was huge and shimmered with white icing and flying dragons made of pure sugar, and also that Potter would probably vomit in the morning if he ate it all. That didn't mean it was Lovegood's creature inside him, of course. "I don't want any cake."

Potter's head came up like he was a dog who'd heard a whistle. "Don't want any _cake_?"

"No," Draco said with perfect truth. "I've lost my taste for such sweet things since the war." He still enjoyed more refined treats, but this cake was no longer the culmination of his desires the way it would have been when he was a child.

Potter shook his head this time, and touched his ear. "But you have to want it," he said, and his voice was childish.

"Why?"

Draco caught his mother's eye that time. Narcissa stood on the other side of the table, holding something that Draco assumed was an empty cake plate in her hand. She looked approving. Draco turned back to Potter and tried to control the temptation to sigh.

"Because—because everyone wants cake. It's the perfect thing to eat. And you have to want perfect things to eat." Potter spread his hands out to frame the cake, still staring at Draco. His arms were barely wide enough to span the base.

Draco shook his head, even as Lovegood muttered something from behind him about Gluttawhoonies loving to deny other people things they wanted. "I wasn't invited to your birthday party. I showed up because my mother begged me to come." He could see Narcissa's face contracting, but, well, he would deal with that particular irritation later. "And I don't like to eat sweets in public."

That particular thing was nonsense, but there was no reason Potter had to know that. Or that the creature inside him, if it existed, did.

Potter's face was swelling up in what looked like a prelude to crying. "But you have to want it. It's _good_!"

"Well, then that's sad for other people," Draco said, hardly able to believe he was speaking the words even as he spoke them. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked gently at Potter, who was still gaping. His cheeks were bright red, and he did have tears in the corners of his eyes.

Draco sighed, deciding that he did have to give some credence to Lovegood's theories after all. There was no way Potter was _that_ good an actor.

"But it has to be sad _for you_!" Potter waved his hands around and stomped his foot, then started pacing back and forth behind the table, still waving his hands. Draco saw Lovegood keeping Potter's friends back out of the corner of his eye. He wondered what they thought they could do that Draco couldn't.

 _If they were any good, they would have done something before I got here._

"Why?" Draco asked, in the interests of moving the conversation along.

Potter whirled around the table and came up to him. Draco blinked. Either the creature that possessed Potter had an interesting smell, or Potter had started to use even more interesting cologne since the war ended.

 _Cologne. It has to be._

"Because that's what I do," Potter whispered in a confiding tone. "I steal the happiness from people's souls and the sugar from their mouths." For a moment, he gave Draco a pleased smile, as if they were friends sharing a secret. Then the smile vanished, and he folded his arms and stomped his foot. "You can't just stand there and _say_ that it doesn't matter to you!"

"But it doesn't," Draco said, and watched in interest as Potter's face screwed up again. "I don't like cake like this."

Potter adopted an expression of simple cunning and backed away from the table, hands raised now. "You can have it."

Draco shook his head. "No. _You_ can have it."

" _You_."

 _Dear God, I'm standing here and having this kind of conversation with Harry Potter._ Draco reflected for a moment on how very strange his life had become, but he saw Lovegood nodding and smiling. So apparently he was doing what he was supposed to do.

That just made Draco reflect on how _pathetic_ his life had become. To try and shed the sensation, he began speaking to the Gluttawhoonie, or whatever it was, again. "What happens if I take the cake and give it to the others?"

Potter, who had been tapping one foot on the ground and whistling tunelessly, turned to him with his mouth wide open. "You—you—you want to _share_?"

"Yes," said Draco. "If you give the cake to me, I'll just share it with other people."

"But _why_?" That sounded like a wail from the heart, assuming Gluttawhoonies had hearts.

"Because I don't want it," Draco said. "And otherwise, what would happen? I would just end up throwing it away, and it would hurt my arms to carry the cake to the rubbish." He thought the Gluttawhoonie would ask why he wasn't using his wand, but Potter just stood there gaping. "I don't want the work. I'll tell them to cut it up and share it on plates instead."

"In how many pieces?" the Gluttawhoonie asked.

Draco glanced around, counting guests, and then nodded. "Twenty-five."

"But you _can't!_ It would be _criminal_!" Potter had big tears standing in the corners of his eyes. As Draco watched in fascination, two of them manifested and rolled down his cheeks.

 _I almost do hope that it's Lovegood's creature. Seeing Potter's face when he realizes what he did while he was possessed ought to be_ hysterical. Draco did his best to look repentant. "You're right. It would."

Potter perked up and gave him such a big smile that Draco thought he could probably count his tonsils. "You agree?"

"Yes. It should be at _least_ thirty. That way, some of the people who want two can have them."

Potter uttered a sound like a cat choking on its own saliva and launched himself at Draco, his hands spread as wide as when he was trying to encircle the cake.

Draco went down on his back, stunned by the unexpectedness of the attack. But Potter wasn't reaching for his wand; maybe the Gluttawhoonie inside him didn't know how to use one. Instead, he was flailing around with his hands and spitting and striking Draco more by luck, with the sides of his palms, than with any force.

Draco reached up and got hold of Potter's hands, then rolled so he was the one pinned on the ground and Draco knelt over him. The big, wobbling lips and equally huge, teary eyes almost got to him, but he managed to swallow his laughter and shake his head.

"Even thirty wouldn't be enough. It would have to be thirty-five. After all, why should only five guests get seconds?"

Potter actually kicked him in the stomach then. Draco bent over with a desperate, burning need to regain his air. But that turned not to be all bad, because it meant that he actually collapsed on top of Potter and kept him from moving anywhere.

The Gluttawhoonie in Potter's body continued to kick and scream, a shrill, ear-piercing sound that Draco associated more with children being told they had to wait until eleven to go to Hogwarts. But he could hear Lovegood calling encouragement to him, and then she actually bustled around them and caught Potter's head between her hands.

"Tear off a piece of your hair and lay it on his tongue, Draco!" she said in a calm, authoritative voice. "There's a reason it has to be a _blond_ male to defeat the Gluttawhoonie. The blond has to come into it somewhere."

Draco stared at her. "Sacrifice my hair?"

"No! No! No!"

More to stop the screams than because Lovegood was nodding to him, Draco decided to do it. She hadn't said, at least, that he actually needed to tear a piece of hair out by the roots. He plucked a single wispy strand near the edges that was ready to come out anyway, but he still winced as he laid it on Potter's tongue (Lovegood had to pry his mouth open). This had better be worth it.

But it was worth it to see Potter's eyes bug out and his mouth clamp shut over the hair as if he couldn't stop himself. And then he licked and mouthed the piece of hair in a way that made Draco shift a little uncomfortably.

The screams had stopped, though. And Potter held his breath for a second, then started breathing in a different pattern. The glistening tears at the corners of his eyes faded as if they'd never been, and he shook his head.

"Luna? Why are you holding onto me?" He shifted and looked up at Draco through blurred eyes, squinting as if he'd suddenly put on a different pair of glasses. "And why are you sitting on top of me, Malfoy?"

He made the words sound almost dirty, and Draco's face burned as he scrambled off. He could hear Lovegood explaining things to Potter, but since her first words included, "You had a Gluttawhoonie inside you, Harry," he knew he didn't want to listen to the details.

He sighed as he roughly rubbed his fingers through his hair. He could still feel the mournful loss of that little piece. He decided a fitting reward—after he got Potter to promise to pay for his book, of course—would be going to Diagon Alley for a haircut.

"Malfoy."

Potter had recovered faster than Draco thought he would. Draco turned around with eyebrows raised, and found Potter rubbing the back of his neck and standing in place with his head bowed.

"Luna told me that I wouldn't have recovered if not for you." Potter sighed. "I don't think I have any other blond male friends."

"I didn't know that you considered me a friend, Potter," Draco said in curiosity. He noticed Narcissa frowning at him over Potter's shoulder. Draco didn't frown back. Strange as his mother and her friendship with Potter were, this was about _Draco_ and Potter.

"Well, now I do." Potter made a hesitant gesture in the direction of the table and the cake. "If you want to stay for the party, you're welcome."

Draco tried not to show his amusement as he studied Potter and the awkward way he shifted his feet. "Even though I don't like cake?"

"So you _did_ mean it."

"I did." Draco decided to relent a little at the puzzled look in Potter's eyes. "I do like some sweets. But not a cake as big and elaborate as this."

"Well, stay anyway," Potter said, and his eyes were big and sure. "And even if you don't like _this_ cake, I'm sure we can find you…something you'd like."

Draco had to smile, and he didn't care if his smile was slow and amused. "That might be interesting to contemplate," he said. "You've already had my hair in your mouth. I suppose it's only fitting that I take something of yours in mine."

Potter blushed hard, and then turned and cleared his throat and announced to the rest of the guests that the party was back on. The cheer that went up made Draco wince. Still, Gryffindors had always been raucous. What could you do?

And he did decide to stay, if only to talk to Potter about paying for his book.

And because if he went anywhere by himself, he risked Lovegood showing up to talk to him about some other creature. She had that look in her eyes.

Luckily, even she got distracted by the cake.

 **The End.**


End file.
